Scenario/ Poll : Risk Management

If you were made aware of a significant pathology-wide risk that could affect the LIMS, and your Pathology IT manager is looking very haggard, and probably having sleepless nights that even reading the Orange Guide or counting sheep doesn't help with - what would you do?

I would determine if the risk actually affects the LIMS , so validate your system. Then raise a deviation if you have determined that the risk is impacting the safety of your service. escalate escalate escalate.

You would need to be sure of your findings and document them accordingly as part of, presumably, an incident/failure. As well as alerting your group, the LIMS provider should be advised ASAP and asked for their view on your data. If "correct" the LIMS should put out an alert to all users. This might be a field safety notice. LIMS provider should develop a patch to correct the issue (sometimes available at extra cost!). If the fining has resulted in the issue of the wrong blood component this should obviously be reported to SABRE too. Reading between the lines I think the question is how do you get somebody to take notice???

I think your points are very helpful and valid Simon and EClarke, thanks. Yes, it is about raising visibility so that everyone is aware and the situation properly assessed and as mentioned, for Path IT to validate, risk assess and escalate as necessary. Though recently when I raised an incident about something, all hell broke loose! Discussing this particular issue has already started a similar disturbance (in the Force- oh, what I could do if I had the powers of Darth Vader!), so next week should be fun, and I already have a headache thinking about it.